


Poison and Pain

by Fenix21



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, hurt!Dean, sick!Sam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-15
Updated: 2015-06-14
Packaged: 2018-04-04 11:12:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4135314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fenix21/pseuds/Fenix21
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean gets hurt on a hunt. Sam gets food poisoning. John has an epiphany that his boys might not need him anymore...if they ever did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not too sure where this started, and I really have no idea where it was supposed to end up, but here we are, and I'm not too sure there's really much of a point here or a plot, just some love and angst and tenderness between the boys.
> 
> For reference sake, in case I forgot to actually include it, Dean is about 18 and Sam is about 14

_Full speed, ahead, Mr. Sulu. Warp factor nine._

Dean let the corner of his mouth pick up in a half smile and let his eyelids sink closed another fraction of an inch. He rolled his head a little further toward the window and watched the stars bleed into each other against the deep black velvet of the moonless sky, making star-lines, just like in those old episodes of Star Trek that Sammy liked to watch so much when they could land a motel with a working TV.

‘Dean.’

John’s hand came across the space of the front seat of the car and landed heavy on Dean’s shoulder. He flinched a little and bit his bottom lip to silence the groan of pain from his bruised ribs.

‘Yeah. ‘M awake, Dad.’

John looked at him for a long moment, until Dean rolled his head back toward him so John could see the whites of his eyes in the dim lights from the dash. He nodded once and dropped his hand and went back to watching the road intently. Dean shifted a little in the seat, putting his shoulder up against the door so he could stretch out his left leg. Fuck, but he hurt. Everywhere. That bitch of a spirit had really taken it out of his hide tonight.

He supposed she had more reason than most considering her husband had cheated on her with a string of whores and then killed her when she discovered him in the act. The icing on that particular cake was that she was pregnant with their first child. Surveying for a new stripmall near the old cemetery where she’d been buried had been enough to bring her out of the ether and send her on a vengeful and pretty indiscriminate killing spree.

Dean’s past wasn’t particularly spotless where women were concerned, so she was happy to use him as a punching bag while John dug up her grave. Bean bag toss might have been more accurate, he thought wryly and shifted in the seat, trying to find some say to relieve the sharp pain in his ribs and the dull ache in his knee at the same time, seeing as how she spent the majority of time throwing him from pillar to post, or tree to gravestone as the case may be. The gravestones had done the most damage, leaving him with a bruised knee, bruised ribs which he thought more likely might actually be cracked, a very nearly dislocated shoulder, and a crack to the head that might very well have given him another concussion which was why John was trying to keep him awake until he could get them to the next town over the state line, get a hotel, and get a closer look at him. 

‘Dad, pull over, will ya?’ Sam’s voice came from the back.

A frown pulled at the corner of John’s mouth. ‘Sam, I told you to go to the bathroom at the last stop. It’s twenty minutes to the next town. We’ll stop there for the night. You can hold it.’

‘Dad—.'

‘Sammy, it’s freakin’ pitch black out. You don’t wanna stop out here. You’ll probably piss on your shoes ‘cause you can’t see,’ Dean said tiredly, hearing the edge in Sam’s voice and trying to forestall any arguments. 

‘Dean, I—.'

‘Sam, just—.' Dean tipped his head back just enough to see Sam’s face, and it still made his head swim and his eye feel like it was going to pop out of its socket, but when he saw his brother pale and sweaty and looking decidedly green around the gills instead of bitch-faced and cranky like he was expecting, he slid upward in the seat and reached across to fist a hand in John's coat. 'Dad. Pull over. Now.'

John's eyes flicked to the rear view mirror. He couldn't see much of Sam in the shadows of the backseat, but he took the urgency in Dean's voice seriously anyway and steered the Impala off onto the shoulder a few feet down the road where it was slightly wider. The second the tires quit rolling, Sam barreled out the back passenger side door and Dean was right behind him. 

'Fuck, Sammy.' Dean ignored the spike of pain under his ribs and the gruesome grinding feeling under his knee cap that came with his quick tumble from the car and reached around Sam's shoulders to keep him from taking a header down the slight embankment as he doubled over, hands braced on his knees, and heaved up his guts and then some. 'Why didn't you just say you were sick?'

Sam shook his head a little, heaved again, doubling down lower and starting to shake in Dean's grip. Dean smoothed his sweat-stringy hair off his forehead and held it while Sam tried to take an unsuccessful breath and brought up what Dean judged from the smell might have been last night's dinner. 

'Sammy, you okay?' John asked from where he stood, one arm propped on the Impala's open door, the other on the roof, one foot still on the floor boards. 

Sam coughed, gagged, and retched up another mouthful of stomach acid in answer. 

'Dean?' John pressed, voice a little wary when he didn't get an answer. 

'He's fine,' Dean said without looking over his shoulder, though he had no idea yet if that was entirely true. 'Get me a towel outa the trunk or somethin'.'

He heard the creak and whine of the trunk hinges and then a towel appeared over his left shoulder, held out gingerly because John had never really been very good at the whole blowing chunks thing with either of his boys. He could handle blood, guts, gore of any color, slime viscosity, or consistency, but good old vomit? Nope. 

Fortunately or not, Dean had no gag reflex, so he could count the times he'd actually managed to throw up in his near eighteen years on one hand. It had, consequently fallen to him to hold Sam's head over the toilet on the numerous occasions the kid's touchy stomach had rebelled or he'd caught a flu bug of one sort or other. Not that Dean would ever have done it any differently. Sam was his first priority no matter what, and he had long ago slid into the number one spot in taking care of what the kid needed.

It wasn't that John was a bad parent, it was just that, well, he lacked in several essential skills; and it wouldn't have been a lack if Mary had still been around. John had been a great dad, fulfilling every little boys' dream of playing catch and tinkering under the hood of the car, and raking leaves into piles in the autumns only to send them scattering with flying cannonball jumps, and building snowmen and carving snow angels with flailing limbs. John had done all those things with Dean.   

But with Mary gone, John had been bereft himself, had a vital part ripped out that left a gaping wound that could not be filled by anything he poured into it. Not guilt, or booze, or vengeance, or cold, determined will. And not his boys. 

Dean hadn't even tried, at first because he was too stricken by his own loss, and then later because, five years old or not, Dean could tell the light in his father's eyes was gone for good, and there would be no more easy smiles. As the temporary 'this is just a nightmare I'm going to wake up from' eventually bled out into the more permanent 'this is my life, so I guess if you can't beat it, become it,' Dean easily and quickly slid into the primary caregiver position for his brother. And John let him. 

Whether it was that latent responsibility he felt for Sam from the moment John had pushed him screaming into Dean's arms and told him to run, or if it just came naturally to him, being so very much Mary's blonde haired baby boy, Dean took to his role as Sam's other parent like he was born to it. The consequences, if there were any, were of the sweetest variety: Sam taking his first tentative steps holding onto Dean's steadying hands with a drooling, toothless smile on his face; Sam wrapping his baby pink lips around 'Dee' instead of 'Da' as his very first word (and Dean's glowing smile at that had sent a spike of regret and jealousy through John's gut so hot and sharp he could barely breathe, but Dean had missed that in his excited coaxing to get Sam to speak again). There were moments of tension when Sam started getting old enough to know that his deferment to Dean over their father rubbed John wrong, but Dean tried to smooth the way and never get too far afield of anything John would want for Sam, at least, not obviously so. 

This didn't include letting their PT sessions slide while John was out of town so that Sam could spend extra time on his science project that won him a blue ribbon at the fair; or taking Sam out to get brand new (not handed down twice through Goodwill) slacks for his first seventh grade dance along with a completely impractical pair of dress shoes that would be good for nothing else and that Sam would outgrow in less than three months.  

These were the things that Dean did and provided for Sam that John didn't know about and had no clue how to do anyway.

Dean threw the towel over his shoulder and tightened his arm around Sam's shoulders when his legs started to shake in earnest and threatened to dump him on the ground were it not for Dean's hold on him. When Sam was finally able to pull in a full breath and then another and he started to tip to the side, Dean drug him backwards to the Impala and let him down against the wheel well, pushing his head down between his upraised knees and whipping the towel down to wipe his face and mouth. He brushed Sam's floppy bangs back with smooth, even strokes, lingering a moment against his forehead to test for fever. While there might be something low grade there, it could just as easily be attributed to his recent exertions emptying his stomach. 

'Sammy, if you picked up the flu again....'

'Sounds more like food poisoning,' John piped up from a few feet away where he was keeping his distance leaning into the still open trunk. 'Been there a time or two myself.'

Dean groaned and rolled his eyes under closed lids. 'Sam, I told you that chicken looked suspicious. You gotta listen to me. If God is good, and therefore wants us to be happy, then that means bacon cheese burgers, dude. Not grilled chicken on rabbit food.'

Sam huffed a tired laugh that turned into an aborted gag reflex and a liquidy sounding belch.

'Dude!' Dean mock admonished.

'Sorry,' Sam said pitifully.

Dean shook his head and kept a hand at the back of Sam's neck. ''S okay. I'll let it slide this time,’ he teased gently. ‘You gonna hurl again?'

Sam seemed to consider this thoroughly through several deep, slow breaths, and finally shook his head. 

'Can you get back in the car?'

Sam lifted his head just enough to look at Dean from the corner of his eye. 'Gotta choice?'

'Not really. But if you yak in that car, Dad's gonna be right there with you, and I am _not_ cleaning that up.'

'I'll be okay...I think.'

Sam didn't sound very certain, and Dean wasn't peachy about the idea of putting Sam back on the road in this shape, but it wasn't like they could stay on the side of the road for the night, and John had said the next town was only about twenty minutes up ahead.

'Come on, little brother,' Dean said, hefting Sam gently upward, using the car for support for both of them and swallowing a grunt of pain. 'Up we go.'

'Dean, your ribs....' Sam protested weakly.

''M fine, Sam. Just slide in there,' Dean directed, giving Sam a gentle push down into the car and keeping a hand to this head so he didn't bump it on the way. 

He swung the door closed and went back to the trunk and grabbed a trash bag off the roll they kept for less than appetizing cleanups after messy hunts.

'Just in case,' he said to John’s querying eyebrow, and reached up to close the trunk without thinking and ground his teeth together when his shoulder and ribs protested together and nearly knocked him breathless.

'Dean, we need to get those wrapped up before you make them worse,' John said. 'And I need to check that shoulder.'

'I can move it. It's fine,' Dean said, swallowing back against the throbbing pain radiating down his arm. 'Let's get Sam to a bed before he throws up in the backseat.'

John cringed just a little at the steely, selfless tone in his older son’s voice that he knew he was more than a little bit responsible for putting there, and moved to the still ajar driver's door, opening the back door for Dean when it became evident he wasn't leaving Sam alone in the backseat, and then closing it behind him and easing the Impala back out on the road while Dean situated himself in the back, keeping the trash bag at the ready under Sam's head.

\-----

Sam managed not to need the bag, but the second John had their motel door unlocked, he was out of the back of the car and racing into the bathroom, not even bothering to get the door closed before he dropped on his knees with his head hanging over the bowl. Dean started to follow him, but John's stern voice drew him up short. 

'Dean, I want you on the bed. Now. I need to get those ribs wrapped.'

'In a minute, Dad. Let me get Sam—'

'Sam's got a long night ahead of him, and there isn't much either of us can do, and you could puncture a lung if you move wrong and any one of those cracks becomes a break. So. Sit. Your. Ass. Down.'

John didn't swear a whole lot. Not nearly as prolifically or proficiently as Dean, so when he did, he usually meant business.

'Dad—'

'Sit. I'll check on Sam.'

John did. Kinda of. He leaned his shoulder on the doorjamb and kept his back turned to the bathroom while Sam wretched into the bowl again. 'Sam? You gonna live?'

Sam gulped a breath and tried to raise himself on shaky arms. It was all Dean could do not to bolt into the bathroom and drop down on the cold tiles beside him and take the kid in his arms. It went against every instinct he had to just sit there and watch. Sam managed a nod and a wobbly thumbs up. John pulled the door most of the way closed and went back to Dean, pulling out the med kit and ordering him to strip. 

Dean did as his father ordered, but sat tense and prickly for the next fifteen minutes while John bound up his ribs good and tight, and then checked him over from top to toe for any other major damage.

'We need to keep an eye on that knee. I'll go out and get some ice.'

Dean nodded absently, flinching when he heard Sam retching yet again. 'Dad, can you pick up some ginger ale and some crackers, too?'

John sighed a little and nodded. 'Yeah. I'll run down to the gas station on the corner.'

'Thanks.'

Dean was off the bed and moving before John had even shrugged back into his jacket and got the keys in his hand.

'Sam?' Dean pushed open the door carefully and found Sam draped over the toilet, soaked to the skin in sweat, pale as a sheet and shaking like a leaf in a windstorm.

'Jesus, Sam....' Dean slid into the floor beside him, trying to find the best hold to support him when Sam lurched forward and retched up a thin rivulet of brown tinged fluid but nothing else, his back bowing up with the effort his body was making to force out the poison it had unknowingly ingested, abdominal muscles pulling so tight that Sam gasped and whined in pain and fell against Dean's chest, his face wet with more than just sweat, and Dean reached up to wet one of the scratchy, paper thin motel washcloths and mop the tears from Sam's cheeks.

'Shhh. Shhh, Sam. It's gonna be okay. Just get it up and out of your system and you'll feel better. I promise.'

Sam doubled over as his stomach cramped mightily now that it was completely empty and whimpered weakly against Dean's shoulder.

'Hurts, Dee....'

'I know. I know. Just...don't fight it. The sooner you get it all up, the better,' Dean soothed, keeping a hand in Sam's hair and stroking gently.

Sam said something muffled against his chest.

'What's that, Sammy?'

'Your knee.... Dean, that's gotta hurt. You need to get off this floor,' Sam said, shaking his head back and forth, still looking down at the mottled mass of bruising all over Dean's torso that was finally beginning to show its true colors in all their gruesome glory. 

''M fine, kiddo. Don't you worry about me. It's just a few bruises. I'll live. Dad fixed up my ribs and that was the worst part.'

Sam tried to say something else, to protest Dean staying on the floor with him, but it got cut off by another round of heaving. Dean moved with him as Sam lurched for the toilet bowl and wretched until he was gasping and nearly hyperventilating from panic at not being able to draw in any usable air. He was shaking so badly he couldn't hold himself up, and Dean ignored the sharp, incessant pain in his side and the throbbing ache in his leg as he held his brother up with one strong arm and kept his hair out of his face with his free hand and shushed him with whispered non-sense.

'Shh. Shhhhh, shhh, Sammy. Breathe. Just breathe.'

'Can't—! I c-can't!' Sam gasped, shaking and struggling with no real goal other than to just try and escape the pain in his gut and the overwhelming nausea.

Dean tightened his arm, tucked Sam's back hard against his bare chest and took a deep, slow breath despite the bandages confining him and the stabbing pain he got as a reward.

'Sam, you can. Okay? Just breathe with me, okay?' He snugged his brother even closer. 'Feel that?'

Sam gave a frantic little nod, still gripping the toilet bowl with trembling, white-knuckled hands, and gasping erratically. 

'Good,' Dean said. 'Now…one breath at a time.'

He pulled in another breath and Sam did the same. It stuttered some and he couldn't hold it, but Dean just let him get to the bottom of the breath and did it all over again, and Sam was able to pull deeper this time, letting it out slower and steadier. 

'That's it…' Dean praised softly. He stroked a hand through Sam's hair and soaked the washcloth again and wiped Sam's face and hands and pulled him back to rest in the V of his legs against the tub. He rested a hand across his little brother's heart and monitored the rhythm as it slowed and settled into something close to normal.

'Better?'

'…Yeah,' Sam panted. He sounded like he'd run a marathon.

'Wanna try going out and laying down?'

Sam shook his head. 'Not yet.'

''K.'

Dean closed his eyes and focused on the beat of Sam's heart under his palm. He was in enough pain now that sweat was starting to prickle at his hairline and trickle down the trough of his backbone, but he wasn't moving an inch until he could get Sam off this bathroom floor and tucked into bed with him.

'Dean?'

'Yeah, kiddo.'

'Tell me about mom.' Sam sounded a little sleepy and dazed and Dean lifted a hand to his forehead again to check his temperature. He was a little warm, but not dangerously so. 'Please?'

Dean repressed a sigh. He hated digging up these memories. It was the only thing he couldn't offer Sam freely, and not because he didn't want to, but because it hurt so much to think about his mother with her soft, golden hair tumbling around her face and the smell that he could almost place when the light and the breeze were just right on a summer afternoon. 

'What do you wanna know, kiddo?'

Sam shifted a little, and Dean tensed to help get him back to the toilet if he needed, but he just settled his weight more heavily against Dean's chest and sighed. 'What did she do for you when you were sick?'

'Told you, Sammy. A thousand times. She used to fix tomato and rice soup, same as I do for you; and when I couldn't sleep or had nightmares, she'd sing _Hey Jude_.'

Sam nodded, but Dean knew he wasn't satisfied. 'Were you ever sick…like this?'

'Not that I remember,' Dean answered. He really just wanted this conversation over, but he knew Sam was just looking for a distraction, too. He sighed again. 'At least, not when she was around.'

'When?'

Dean eased his bad knee down to the floor and shifted his arm to take more of Sam's weight. 'You probably don't remember. I think I was almost nine. Caught some sort of bug in the middle of winter. Dad had left us in a motel up in Minnesota for two or three days. By the time he got back, I was running a pretty high fever. He kept us there for a couple more days, but I didn't get any better. I was gettin' worse, in fact, and he started to freak out a little and bundled us into the car and took off for Bobby's.

'Bobby ripped him a new one for waitin' so long to get me to a doctor and called some friend of his, but by that time I was burning up and damn near delirious.'

'What did Dad—?' Sam belched, slapped and hand over his mouth, and Dean helped him roll up onto his knees over the toilet bowl. He took a couple of shaky breaths, sat back on his haunches, but stayed propped over the bowl. Dean sat forward, grinding his teeth against the creak behind his kneecap as he forced it to bend and take his weight so he could get up beside Sam and gather his hair back just in case. 'Wh-What did Dad do to take care of you?'

Dean started stroking Sam's back in slow, downward sweeps as a preemptive strike against the tension he could feel building in the muscles beneath his hand. Sam belched again, lurched forward a little, scrunched his eyes closed, and let out a low, helpless keen just before his entire torso locked up and had him hunched and straining to bring up the whole-lot-of-nothing that was left in his gut. He wretched until he was crying and gasping again and when he spit into the bowl, it came up mucousy and pink, and he nearly panicked.

'D-Dean?' His voice was high and strained, and he coughed and spit again, more reddish pink, and made a strangled, frightened sound in his throat.

Dean pulled him back, got him a cup of water to swish and rinse with, flushed the pinkish brown water away, and wiped Sam's hands and mouth and face again. 

'Hey, hey, hey. Shhhhhh…. It's okay. Everything's okay,' Dean crooned.

'B-But, Dean…?'

Dean cupped his face, thumbed at the tears settling on his lower lashes. 'It's okay, Sammy. You've been throwin' up real hard. Your throat's getting raw is all. It happens. Just relax and breathe, okay?'

Dean wasn't quite as confident as he felt. John had thrown up blood a couple of times when his windpipe had been damaged by a pretty severe blow, and this wasn't nearly like that, but it still didn't fill Dean with warm fuzzies. If they couldn't get Sam's vomiting under control soon, Dean felt a midnight trip to the ER would definitely be in their near future. 

Sam nodded hesitantly and let Dean draw him back in against his chest, settle them both back against the cold, hard tub. Sam's fingers fidgeted and fiddled until they wound themselves through Dean's belt loops on his jeans and into his front pocket, fisting tightly. Dean pushed his fingers firmly into Sam's hair at the back of his head and rubbed the pads of his fingers in tiny, slow circles against his scalp.

'T-Tell me,' Sam mumbled.

'Hmmm?' Dean hummed tiredly. 

''Bout when you were sick…and Dad.'

'Oh.' Dean tipped his cheek over on the top of Sam's head and nuzzled it a little, tightened his arm around the kid's thin, still trembling shoulders. 'Wasn't him that took care of me…was you.'

Sam started a little and tried to tip his head up, but Dean kept him still.

'Me?'

'Well, obviously Dad's not the real nurturing type,' Dean said, but his tone held no venom. He just stated it as a fact because that's what it was. 'Bobby's friend pumped me full of antibiotics, took Dad over the coals saying I needed a hospital for at least two days, and when he refused to take me, the doc tried every old time trick in the book to get my fever down.'

He paused here and Sam waited, breath slow and measured, chest rising and falling with the regular rhythm of a concentrated effort not to heave again.

'Dad wouldn't let you near me. They couldn't figure out what was wrong with me—don't think they ever really did—so they kept you out of my room since you hadn't shown any signs of catching it yet.' Dean turned his mouth and nose into Sam's sweat damp hair, breathed there a moment. 'You cried. You cried and cried outside my door. Bobby tried to console you, but you'd have none of it. You even slept on the floor in the hallway. He thought you'd catch your death of cold.

'Dad had taken off about a day and a half after he dropped me off, and after three days and you still weren't showing signs of getting sick even though you'd been with me the whole time at the motel, Bobby finally gave up and let you in.'

'You were so sick you couldn't even talk,' Sam mumbled. 'You didn't even see me. I was so afraid you were…going to die.'

Dean pulled back a fraction, scowling. 'You remember that? You were barely five. Not even.' Sam nodded against his chest. 'Jesus… _I_ don't even hardly remember it. 'Cept you curled up beside me when I finally came around. I think Bobby probably tried to keep you out of the bed, but just as soon as his back was turned you must've crawled up and just plastered yourself against me.'

'You were so hot I dreamed of fire at night and always woke up crying because you hadn't woken me up sooner and held my breath until I saw you breathing and—' Sam's words got fast and jumbled and a little high and frantic. His hand cinched Dean's waistband almost uncomfortably tight, and he ducked his head down hard into Dean's chest.

'Sam?' Sam keened and curled up tighter. Dean paused in rubbing his back, went very still so as to judge which way he was going to have to move and how fast, because Sam's breathing had picked up and risen into sharp, short whines. 'Gonna throw up again?'

Sam didn't answer for a long second and then gave a quick jerking nod and pushed off Dean's chest. He sat up, fisted a hand against his stomach and bit down hard on his lip, forced himself to suck in a deep breath, and for just a second Dean thought he might have managed to get control of the urge, but then Sam shook his head and gave a low, pained cry and flung himself sideways toward the toilet. 

Dean rolled up onto his knees, taking station behind Sam and holding his hair and keeping an arm braced around his chest. He winced as Sam dry heaved with so much force that his entire body contracted into an impossibly tight ball and he started crying again with the pain. He spat more blood into the water, but it wasn't enough to have to worry about yet, so Dean just told him to relax and breathe and let it come up. He flushed when Sam was finally done, wiped his little brother down again, tried to coax a few swallows of water down his raw, sore throat, and then settled them one more time against the tub.

'Hurts, Dee…' Sam panted as he clutched feebly at Dean's waistband again, grounding himself in the safest, most familiar territory he knew. 'Make it stop…please?'

Dean tipped his head back against the wall and screwed his eyes shut tight against the hot sting of tears as he threaded his hand firmly into Sam's soft, tangled hair and fisted it gently. 'God, Sammy, I wish I could. I really wish I could. Only way through is out, though,' he said, and Sam huffed a pained chuckle at Dean's twist of the old phrase. 'Can't be much left in ya, kiddo. Think you've just about puked up every spare ounce of fluid you have and then some. We really need to get you rehydrated. Dad should be back with some ginger ale in just a bit. How's that sound?'

Sam just nodded. His fingers were going slowly limp at Dean's waist, and he was settling heavier against Dean's shoulder. Dean blew out a relieved breath and pressed a kiss to the top of Sam's head. 'Sleep, Sammy, just sleep. It'll be better when you wake up. Promise.'


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little bit of John.

John came back to the motel room about forty-five minutes later. 

The gas station on the corner had ginger ale but no crackers, so John made a trip to the all night grocery he'd spotted coming into town, grateful that there even was one, and commandeered the crackers and some Gatorade, too, and then hit the liquor store across the street because he needed something to take the edge off if he was going to be stranded here for a couple of days while his boys healed up. He knew it didn't say much for him as a father that he couldn't even hardly stand being in the same room with them when they were sick or injured, but it reminded him far too much just how fragile they were and how easily they could be taken from him. It reminded him of his own mortality, too, and that was a dangerous thing to have preying on his mind with some of the creatures he went up against.

He dropped the bags on the table by the door when he got back, popped the lid on the cooler and dumped the ice in so it would stay at least partially frozen and then went to knock tentatively on the bathroom door that was still ajar. 

'Sam?'

Not a sound.

'Dean?'

Still nothing. John's gut flip-flopped and he shoved the door back, knocking it into Dean's booted foot which elicited a sharp hiss of pain. Sam was draped over Dean's chest, fast asleep, and Dean was slouched in a half twisted position in the tight corner where the tub met the wall. John frowned.

'He okay?'

Dean nodded sharply. 'Think he's done for now. Started throwin' up a little blood 'cause his throat's so raw, but I think he'll be all right so long as we get some fluids in him.'

Dean started to try and sit up and drag Sam with him, but his knee finally and suddenly made it known that he'd abused it as much as he was going to get away with tonight and his ribs screamed in protest to the pinched, twisted position they'd been forced to endure for nearly the last hour. He managed to curtail the pained outcry so that it merely came out a low groan as he dropped back against the tub and wall. 

'Let me have him,' John said quietly.

He bent and scooped his youngest son into his arms, lifting him effortlessly against his chest, and tried to ignore the shocked look on his eldest's face. Sam moaned a little, mumbled something that may have been Dean's name, but sank into his father's embrace without waking. John's heart turned and twisted in his chest, writhing like a wounded animal. This is what he'd given up for his vengeance. He'd given up the ability to hold and comfort his sons when they needed him most because he was so hell bent on protecting them. He'd given up the right to tell them everything was going to be all right and have them believe it.

He laid Sam down on the bed furthest from the door and turned out the bedside lamp to keep the light out of his eyes so he wouldn't wake. With any luck, he'd sleep straight through until morning, and by then the poison should have worked its way out of his system. He brushed an errant strand of hair off Sam's forehead, leaned down like he was about to give him a good-night kiss, but stopped himself. He didn't deserve that, and he knew it. 

Dean was trying to lever himself up onto his knees when John came back to the bathroom.

'Dean?'

Dean ground his teeth together and tightened his grip on the tub in an attempt to find purchase to get enough leverage to get off the floor. 'I got it, Dad.'

John loitered at the door for a few seconds, winced at the grinding in Dean's kneecap when he tried unsuccessfully to get his leg under him to help him get up off the tile. Dean's face was a stony mask that John was well aware hid an explosion of pain, but his eldest son had long ago perfected the art of 'never let them see you bleed.' John just wondered when exactly _he_ had fallen into the category of 'them.'

After two more failed attempts, and Dean's facade slipping enough that he nearly bit a hole in his lip, John stepped into the tight space, looped an arm under Dean's on the side of his ribs with the least amount of bruising and carefully lifted him upward. Unfolding his body pulled at muscles that had gone tight and joints that had nearly frozen after the beating he'd taken, and Dean couldn't help the sudden yelp of pain that escaped.

John's arm tightened around him and he stood still for a minute, letting Dean fist the shoulder of his shirt in a shaking hand and pant his way through the pain stabbing at him from every angle. He finally gave a sharp nod and John carefully walked him out into the main room and started to ease him onto the spare bed by the door.

'W-With Sammy,' Dean huffed through gritted teeth.

John frowned. 'Dean, I can sleep on the floor. Already brought in the sleeping bags.'

Dean shook his head. 'Need to…watch him for fever. Make sure he's okay.'

John sighed heavily and when he spoke his voice was quiet, drained, almost defeated. 'I can do that, Dean. While you rest. And heal. You need to have room to stretch out, so you don't get anymore cramped than you already are.'

Dean swung his gaze to John's, then cut for a moment to Sam curled on the bed, scowling in his sleep as he hunched around his arms folded tight against his cramping midsection, then he looked back up at his father.

John's heart lodged in his throat. The realization was sudden and sharp and cut him straight to the bone, that he was the one who should be wearing that look of worry and concern. He was the one who should need to be in touching distance of his youngest son to be able to check on him during the night and hold his head if he got sick again. But he'd given up that responsibility to Dean years ago, and now there was no getting it back, no taking away the creases in his son's brow or the tightness around his mouth as he bit back a protest the _he_ needed to be the one to stay close to his brother tonight.

'All right,' John whispered. 'All right.'

He let Dean down easy onto the bed beside Sam, swung his legs up and unlaced his boots, and moved off to the cooler where he'd stashed the ice.

Dean reached out and brushed at Sam's hair with a feather-light touch. Sam's eyes parted open for half a second, and seeing Dean near enough to touch, he squirmed across the bed and was notched in tight to Dean's side when John returned with two homemade icepacks wrapped in towels that he gently propped around Dean's knee. One was probably for his ribs, but Sam was nestled in too close to allow for that so John just sighed in resignation and tugged the comforter from the other bed and spread it over his boys.

Dean cracked an eye. 'Thanks, Dad.'

John said nothing, just laid his rough, broad hand to the side of Dean's bruised face and for the space of a heartbeat he was sure he felt his son turn into the touch, almost nuzzle into it like he had so many years ago when the only lines around his eyes were caused by laughter and not pain and fear. In the next moment, Dean turned his head away and buried his nose and mouth against Sam's hair, huffed out a long, quiet breath and drifted the last little way down into sleep.

John folded down the blanket on the other bed but didn't lay down. He went to the table, rummaged the drinks and crackers out of the bags and put them in the mini fridge in the kitchenette. Then he pulled out the bottle of Jack and went to the bathroom for the usual complimentary 'sealed for your safety' plastic cups. He was back at the table and pouring himself two fingers worth, considering making it three just to save time and effort, when a low moan from the bed behind him caught his attention.

Dean's face was pulled tight in pain. Unguarded as it was in sleep, he was unable to keep the mask in place. He stopped with the cup halfway to his lips, set it down, took a step toward the bed when his oldest let out another moan that transmuted to a stifled cry, but before he could get to him to offer…whatever comfort he wasn't even sure yet, Sam's hand was finger-crawling up Dean's chest and over his shoulder and stroking lightly and regularly at the short hairs at the base of Dean's skull. 

Sam wasn't even awake. His breathing was still even and regular and only his hand had moved, almost of its own accord, to sift into his brother's hair in that gesture of comfort. Dean quieted instantly, brow still lined in pain, but soothed somehow by his little brother's touch. John froze, heart hammering in his chest. The two of them were tangled like young pups together, attached in ways that John had fostered without ever realizing and could no longer even trace through the overlapping maze in the non-existent space between them. He felt a little sick watching them, wrapped in each other the way they were, both teenage boys, far too close and bound up in each other to be healthy; but there was no separating them now. They were as good as conjoined twins. Take one away and the other would never survive.

Perhaps the most painful thing about it all was that John no longer had a place in their lives; if he ever had to begin with.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something's changed.

Dean woke to the sound of condensation gurgling through the window air conditioner above the labored whir of its ancient fan, and a strip of too bright sun cutting across his face. He raised a hand to cover his eyes, hissed sharply at the pain the movement caused to ripple down his back and side, and turned his head away from the window. Sam was asleep beside him, still curled into his side, but his face looked relaxed now if a little pale and hollow from last night's exertions. Dean cast around in his sleep fogged memory to try and recall if Sam had gotten back up at any point during the night, or how he had even managed to get to bed. With the way he was feeling right now, Dean couldn't imagine how he had managed to get even Sam's slight weight back to the bed.

John.

Dean forced his eyes open again and squinted around the room. Nothing. The other bed was neatly made. If it had been slept it, it was telling no tales now. John's bag and one of their weapon's duffles was gone. There was a glass of water and a couple of bottles of painkillers on the nightstand. 

'Fuck.'

Sam muttered in his sleep, stretched without waking and rolled over toward the wall. Dean rolled onto his side, holding his bottom lip firmly between his teeth to keep from crying out at the throbbing pain in his ribs and the crushing ache behind his eyes. He was most likely concussed, which kind of surprised him seeing as how John had let him fall asleep and then seemingly left. He gasped and flinched and swore his way into a sitting position, grabbed one of the bottles on the nightstand, popped the top and dry swallowed two of its contents, then chased them with the glass of water. 

He needed coffee.

He sniffed the air.

There _was_ coffee.

Dean blinked a few times, tried to bring his vision into sharper focus and took another look around. The coffee pot on the counter behind him was full and on, keeping warm. There was a stack of styrofoam boxes beside it with a note taped to the front. Dean heaved himself to his feet, fit an arm closed to his ribs to hold in the ache, and lurched over to the counter to pour a cup of coffee before he even tried to narrow his focus enough to read the note taped to the boxes.

When he got close enough, he could smell peaches and gravy, and the note was in John's long, thin, scratchy hand.

_Manager said the diner down the block was pretty good—made the best biscuits and gravy in the state. Hope she was right. I can only vouch for the peach pie. Sammy's ginger ale's in the fridge. There's crackers and soup in the cabinet for him. Caught a lead out of Nevada. Should take me 'bout a week. Rest up. Get Sammy back on his feet, and then meet me in Tulsa when you're ready._

_Keys are in your coat. I got another ride. Remember to treat her like a lady, you hear?_

_Love, Dad_

Dean's jaw hung loose, and he spun around a little faster than his damaged knee thought his ought to, sending him off balance enough to slosh his coffee a little, but he caught himself and dove into the pockets of his discarded coat to find the Impala's keys exactly as his dad had said. He yanked open the door to find her black and gleaming and beautiful two spaces over from the door. 

'What the fuck, Dad?' Dean muttered.

There was a blossom of warmth unfurling in his belly over John leaving the car behind for them. He'd never left the car before, and Dean didn't doubt that this was their father's way of showing them he thought they were grown up or something, or that at least Dean was; but at the same time he felt like the rug had been jerked from underneath him, like he was standing on sandy soil that was going to crumble underfoot at any second. This was all sudden and unexpected, and Dean didn't like it one bit.

'Dean?'

Dean took a step back inside the door, stuffed the Impala keys into his jeans pocket, and shut and locked the room. He set his coffee on the table and went back to the bed where Sam had finally come awake and was looking up at him through bleary, tired eyes.

'Hey, kiddo. How ya feeling?' Dean eased down onto the bed, trying not to make any sudden moves, or hiss at any of the myriad random pains prickling all over his body.

'Drained,' Sam sighed. He grimaced a little. 'Stomach still hurts some, but I don't feel like I'm going to hurl, at least. Throat's sore.'

' 'M not surprised after last night,' Dean said, brushing his fingers through Sam's hair. 'Feel like a shower? I'll get you some ginger ale and some broth while you clean up.'

Sam's hand snaked out from under the comforter and latched onto Dean's wrist. 'Dean, where's Dad?'

'He got a lead. Headed out to Nevada early this morning.'

Sam scowled hard. 'And left us here.'

Dean looked back at his little brother, saw the anger steeping in his fierce, color-changing eyes, and kept his face carefully neutral. 'Sure, Sammy. What's new? Not like the first time he's done it.'

'But I was sick! And you're—you're a wreck!'

'Thanks.' Dean rolled his eyes and got to his feet to retrieve his coffee. Sam's fingers tightened at his wrist.

'No! No, that's not what I meant, Dean,' he said a little frantically. 'Please. I'm sorry. I didn't mean that.'

Dean settled back on the mattress, forced up a teasing smile. 'Relax, Sammy. I know. Jesus…'

'I just…' Sam propped himself up on an elbow and idly picked at Dean's denim-clad thigh. 'You're hurt, Dean. You need to be taken care of.'

'You need to be taken care of, too, Sammy,' Dean whispered, taking the kid's chin between his fingers and tipping his pale face up so he could see the line of tears glistening along his lower lashes. 'So, we'll do what we always do, huh?'

Sam's brow folded up for just a second in confusion before Dean leaned forward and rested his forehead against Sam's and smiled, honest and tired. 

'We'll take care of each other.'

Sam nodded, reached up a shaking hand to cup the back of Dean's neck and pull him just that little bit closer. 'Always,' he whispered.

Dean's eyes prickled at the raw emotion in his little brother's hoarse voice, and his heart twisted at the trembling in his hand. He reached around and laced his fingers with Sam's pulling his hand back down to squeeze it tight. 

'First things first,' he said, a little too loudly. 'You get in the shower, and then we get some fluids down you.'

Sam nodded again and pushed the covers back to make his slow way to the side of the bed. He let Dean steady him up onto his feet.

'You good?' Dean asked.

'Yeah.' Sam teetered a little to the bathroom door under Dean's watchful eye, and then turned. 'You take any pills?'

'Yeah. Dad left some.'

'Good. Make sure you warm up the biscuits and gravy and the peach pie, too. You are _not_ starving yourself just 'cause I can't keep down solids for the next three days.'

'Dude!' Dean laughed. 'What are you? Part blood hound?'

Sam just shrugged and grinned tiredly. 'Nah, I'm just that awesome,' he said, parroting his brother's favored line.

'Shower!' Dean commanded with a grin.

Sam started into the bathroom, then stopped again, turned back. 'So…did he say when he'd be back this time.'

Dean paused for a second, then reached into his pocket and dug the keys out. 'Not comin' back. He left the car. We're meeting him when we get you back healthy again.'

Sam's eyes went as big as saucers, then narrowed down. 'You, too.'

'Huh?'

'We're not going a foot from this motel room until your ribs are completely healed and your knee can take your full weight again,' Sam said in a very nearly prissy tone.

Dean scowled and threw a pillow at his head. 'We'll see about that, shrimp-toast. You just worry about gettin' your digestive system back in order, huh? I'll take care of me.'

Sam's face went suddenly soft and a little hurt. ' _I'll_ take care of you, Dean. Like you said…we'll take care of each other.'

Dean sighed, levered himself to his feet and came across the room to envelope his scrawny kid brother in a huge hug. He kissed the top of his head and rested his cheek there for a full minute before he spoke.

'Yeah, I did. I said exactly that.' 

He tipped Sam's face up again and brushed a thumb over his sharpening cheekbone, felt a sudden pang deep in his chest that had nothing to do with any of the physical damage he'd received yesterday. Sam's brow furrowed and he tilted his head just a fraction.

'Dean…?'

Dean gave himself a stiff shake and Sam a sharp smack on the back. 'Shower. Now. I'm _starving_ , dude!'

Sam rolled his eyes. 'Then eat without me! Not like I can share.'

Dean stopped him with a hand at the back of his neck as he turned away. 'Never gonna do anything without you, Sammy.' He jingled the keys still in his hand softly. 'You and me, from now on—together. Got it?'

Sam swallowed thick and audible and nodded slowly. 'Got it.'

The bathroom door closed with a soft click, and Dean pocketed the keys and turned to getting their breakfast ready. John had left them lots of times in the past, ever since Dean was around eight or so, John had been venturing off on his own and leaving his boys behind, either alone or in the care of a trust friend like Bobby or Jim. But this time was different, Dean could feel it. He cracked a can of ginger ale and poured it over ice, then set out a handful of crackers and plated half the biscuits and gravy and set them in the microwave. He'd turn them on just before he got in the shower so they'd be hot when he was done. Then he topped off his coffee and leaned back on the counter, favoring his knee and keeping the weight off of it for now.

Yeah, something was definitely different this time, Dean thought. 

The morning sun cutting into the room cast its sharpened light through the amber of a nearly full bottle of Jack on the front table and the plastic cup beside it that was completely untouched.

Yeah. Something was definitely different.


End file.
